Word.ws English Dictionary

malengine

UK/malˈɛndʒɪn/

malengine noun: evil intent, bad intention; fraud, deceit.

Noun

malengine (uncountable)

  1. (archaic) Evil intent, bad intention; fraud, deceit.
    • But the chaſte damzell, that had neuer priefe / Of ſuch malengine and fine forgerye, / Did eaſely beleeue her ſtrong extremitye.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 406
    • […]for when the Protectors Brother, Lord Sudley, the Admirall through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life, no man could bee found fitter than Bishop Latimer[…]to divulge in his Sermon the forged Accusations laid to his charge[…].1641 May, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have Hindred it. […], [London]: […] Thomas Vnderhill, →OCLC, page 11

Origin of malengine

From Middle English male engyn, male engyne, from Anglo-Norman mal engin, Middle French mal engin, from mal (“bad, evil”) + engin (“ruse; trickery; deception”).

Questions about malengine

What does malengine mean?
Malengine means evil intent, bad intention; fraud, deceit.
What part of speech is malengine?
Malengine is a noun.
How do you pronounce malengine?
Malengine is pronounced /malˈɛndʒɪn/ (UK).

Words near malengine in the dictionary

  1. Malendez
  2. maleness
  3. malenesses
  4. Malenfant
  5. Malenfants
  6. malengine
  7. Malenglish
  8. Malenko
  9. Malenkov
  10. Malenkovism
  11. maleo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: malengine (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “malengine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/malengine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.